Brandon Blue

Double Sonnet

After Matthew Brandt’s Will

I killed a bug today. I don’t know what
kind or who named it, but I killed it and
it scared me when I saw it climbing up
the wall toward the window by my bed. 
Slowly creeping, a black dot against 
the white wall. You thought I wouldn’t 
see you leaving, but I killed you— and it
felt right. The crack of the exoskeleton
under the thumb as the entrails found breath
against the dermis in the caverns of 
my fingerprint. A succulent gush from
a sudden gash against the wall. Above 
my pillow, like splattered brains, the 
black dot lies now a green-red stain. 

I’m painting my room so I’ll get my de-
posit back and stop at the stain. I take
a picture of it and hang it in my
new place. Sometimes, I stare at the print 
melting into the wall and the stain 
is back in my room. I added a black 
frame—not around the edge, but closer to 
the stain—a new picture-in-picture framed 
to center on you. I stare at it like 
a Magic Eye. When I look at the walls, 
I want to see you there how I remembered. 
But the image is never rich enough 
and sometimes you're not all there, but I’ve 
got you framed in a picture pictured in a stain.

Brandon Blue is a black, queer poet, a French teacher, and an MFA candidate at Arizona State University from Washington, DC. He is a reader for Storm Cellar Magazine and his work has or will appear in OutWrite: Pandemic as Portal, [PANK], Beyond Queer Words, and more. His work was also featured in the Capital Pride Poem-a-Day event. His chapbook, Snap.Shot, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Follow him @blue.brandon.poet on Instagram and @bluebrandonpoet as long as Twitter exists.